May 4, 2017

Amish-made Sampler Quilt

This quilt was a wedding gift, much adored, and came to me in need of some patching. The needlework is marvelous, which after all is something Amish quilters are famous for. This is a quilt made for sale, not at all in the traditional style of the antique Amish quilts. Repairing it required that my needle skills stay on par with those of this great quiltmaker!

I couldn't get the whole quilt flat for the photo in my living room. So you have to use your imagination a little bit. Here's a rotated shot that may be kind of dizzying, but helps me explain. The bottom and right side edges have the same deep white scalloped border and red binding that you see on the left edge. At the top of the quilt is the pillow tuck with a straight edge.

Most of the repairs I did are in the basket block and the distelfink (birds) block on the right, and also some rebinding of the scallops alongside those blocks. This area has been sun-faded, which has weakened all the fabrics in that area.

And now we can return to normal gravity!

The quilt is dedicated and dated with machine embroidery. It was specially ordered for this couple and made in Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania. I think this is one of the best town names ever, by the way. Besides these quilted hearts (on just the three scalloped edges, the pillow tuck has only the parallel lines), there are plenty of hearts in the sampler blocks as well. Such a romantic quilt!

Here are some examples of how grand the needle work is. Those perfectly round grapes are 3/4" in diameter. The logs are 1/2" wide. And the Whig Rose is intricate and delightful.

In the distelfink block, the dark red tulip pieces were torn. I knew that they hadn't been appliquéd as two separate pieces in the first place, and that it would be very tricky to mend them that way. I carefully lifted up the white center piece, applied one complete red piece, and restitched the white center on top. It worked quite well, if I do say so myself.

Here are a couple of shots of some of the other blocks, so you can see some more great stitching and some more of the fabrics.

And finally, a few shots that will let you see all the blocks a little better than in the big overview shot.

Once again, I've got to say that the variety of quilts I get to see and spend some time with never fails to inspire me. And also, I get to meet the nicest people! It seems that anyone who has a quilt touch their heart enough to want to really take care of it is by definition a wonderful person!